On the way to the generator

The community of Alangalang, about an hour drive from Tacloban, is one big heap of rubble. But it is not only the houses that make destruction so terrible here - almost the entire crop of coconut palm trees is burst off or uprooted. Almost worse for the people than the destroyed houses, because these trees will take five to ten years until they wear a comparable amount of fruit again. A disaster for the affected population, as they did not only lose their belongings, but their entire livelihood, together with the rice fields, which are also devastated. We are travelling with Antonio, the "Municipal Planner" of Alangalang, and he already fears that the majority of people will move to Cebu or Manila to start a new life in the city.

Besides the houses and the palm trees, the typhoon also destroyed the electrical power supply and with it the water supply system, as Haiyan at the same time demolished the backup generator. Together with Antonio and a delegation of UNICEF technicians and electricians and local mechanics, we are on our way to the generator to bring it back to life and make a crucial step towards giving the population access to drinkable tap water again. At the moment they are depending on unsafe water from hand pumps.

The mission gets significantly hampered when the local delegation is a bit too optimistic and decides to cross the river - our truck's tyres cave into the soft ground and we get stuck in the middle of the river. While the driver tries to contact support to pull the truck back out, the tools, batteries, oil and other material is being carried on foot for the last kilometer. And indeed, a bustling hour later the generator starts running again! Some key parts to activate the pump however are not functioning anymore, and our engineer takes stock of which parts need to be replaced, where we could potentially get them, and assures that UNICEF will settle the bill to make sure that the pump and the chlorination unit are working again and the people have access to safe tap water as soon as possible. Unfortunately, from what we saw today, that is going to take another couple of days.

We make stop at the local school, where Marlo (11) tells me how he experienced the horror of the typhoon. When the roof of their hut started flying away, he and his family ran through the flogging rain and the falling trees to the Barangay Hall (community center), where they fortunately all arrived alive. It was not before two weeks later that they had rehabilitated their shelter to a habitable condition, and still the family lost almost all of their belongings. "If I had one wish, I wish we had a shelter like the one before. And my teddy bear got lost, I wish I could have it back."